Adam Sigelman: Nappy Nina, “Weight,” and Maia Kamil, “Back”
Yaaser Vanderman: Jorja Smith X Preditah, “On My Mind,” and beabadoobee, “Coffee”
A lot going on in Seigs’s first song. Too much, in fact. This song should have done that thing where you take one item off before you leave your apartment (“Hmm, this face mask is pretty gaudy, Coco Chanel would tell me to leave it at home.”) There’s a nice piano part, a pretty good lyrical piece, and a passable set of drum rolls, but they all seem completely divorced from one another, like that one dance troupe that does its choreography before it’s ever even heard the accompanying music. “Back” is more familiar, and better, but it too suffers from a kind of discordant element (an unnecessary and unimpressive rap verse). Maia Kamil’s singing is beautiful “good morning” music though, would definitely be interested in more from her—but “Back” is her only song on Spotify. Maybe we’ll get more in the future.
I’m a lot more into Yaaser’s entries in this matchup. Jorja Smith, the forgotten, British child of Will and Jada, kills it on “On My Mind.” The chorus of this song pairs her impressive but human-sounding voice with some fun chopped up versions of the same, and the whole thing is so compulsively danceable that it’ll even add a little bounce to the desk chair you’re almost certainly reading this from. Because we don’t go anywhere. Because it’s cold and there’s a pandemic. Speaking of our predictable, unceasing, grinding routines—“Coffee”! You probably drink it, maybe even every morning. Please look past the horrible beabadoobee name and give this song a chance, it’ll be a quiet ray of sunshine on a day when you need that.
Mystery Judge Forty-seven:
Alright so, you're getting 3 mystery judges for the price of 1 on this one. I was zooming with friends last night so I recruited them to listen together and weigh in. They were pretty confused by the vagueness of the rules of this challenge and by your commitment to deep detailed analysis of the music selections of a 64-person bracket, by the way. Here are some thoughts from the group:
[Adam]:
“Weight”
"It's more atmospheric than exciting in any way. It's cool, but...more about the vibe"
"I like her voice but the music itself doesn't do much."
"It has so much potential, the tone feels like a style I know is becoming popular. But it sounded like it was on a loop. Just a jazzy sound, not actually great jazz."
"Sen Morimoto. He has good jazzy rap."
“Back”
"I like her voice and the rap verse in the middle. Good groove"
"This one also has a jazzy vibe. It's nice."
"I would listen to this if I want something that isn't pop but also isn't going to make me feel too many feelings."
"It's simple in a good way, it sounds nice."
"I would listen to this while making coffee to take outside in my bathrobe and stroll around in the garden."
[Yaaser]:
“On My Mind”
"I really enjoyed it. I looked it up on spotify as we were listening"
"This is a style I listen to more, I like it"
"The 'Preditah' sign-off at the end was my favorite part"
"This is my favorite one so far. It's repetitive but it grabs me the most"
"Would listen to dance around and fold laundry to"
"I like that it has an older electric music sound. Kind of housey, with a drum loop."
“Coffee”
"It's so basic. Not simple basic, just basic."
"Inoffensive and forgettable in a way that kind of makes me dislike it"
"Kind of twee. Reminds me of Moldy Peaches and the Juno soundtrack. I think I would have been really into this song in high school."
"It doesn't have feeling in it, it's just making music sounds."
"If you average them, I don't know who comes out on top"
"I want to choose [Adam’s entry] but it doesn't appeal to me enough. Mostly I want to not choose [Yaaser’s entry] because it's appealing but kind of boring. but I would choose [Yaaser] in the end."
"With some more listens I think I could maybe like [Adam’s entry] more."
"[Adam’s entry] is more sophisticated maybe? Am I not cool enough to get what's happening here?"
"Yeah, but “On My Mind” was the one song I actually liked"
...We choose [Yaaser] on the strength of “On My Mind.”
Matchup 86
Bill Mergner: Ms. Lauryn Hill ft. Carlos Santana, “To Zion,” and Warren G. ft. Nate Dogg, “Nobody Does It Better”
Eric Schwager: José González, “Down The Line,” and Wild Ones, “Paresthesia”
I’ll be genuinely interested to see how the judge views sending in “To Zion.” Classic song, up there with “Fast Car” for the most “yes, obviously, of course” submission of the competition. The meat of this song is great, but I have to admit I only really like it in 30 second bursts; as a whole it’s pretty repetitive, admittedly repeating some incredible music but also stasis is hell. And it ends with a skit-ish minute of poorly recorded stage talk? I didn’t know that, don’t love that. Bill also adheres to his theme throughout SC14 by returning to the hip hop well, this time going back multiple decades to the Regulators. You know, I now realize that I lived on the West Coast for a few years but didn’t really do much to grow a relationship to SoCal music; it’s not just Nate Dogg-esque 90s rap, but Blink 182-esque pop punk, Quiet Riot-esque glam metal, Kendrick/Odd Future-esque current hip hop. Kind of regretting that! Ah well.
Wait, José González is Swedish? Huh! Don’t judge a name by its accent marks, I guess. Hope that herd immunity is working for him and his drummer, actual name Tobias Winterkorn. He provided the score to a pretty famous ad for like … Sony I guess? back in 2010, and I was going to do a whole “wow-we-live-in-hell” thing about how it is one of my favorite pieces of art and that’s bleak and wow George Saunders was right but then I rewatched it and felt nothing and honestly my favorite art is the Rodins at the Brooklyn Museum and not everything has to be a referendum on capitalism. “Down The Line” is a great, great song that you probably know and “Paresthesia” is an interesting, interesting song that you probably don’t and they’re both worth your time. Schwager has levels to him!
Mystery Judge Thirty-three:
[Bill]:
“To Zion” is absolutely classic. Mm. Those sweet sounds of the soulful guitar. Like seven inches from the midday sun...so cool. Yet so hot. The sounds of the guitar...[click this:
] plaayed by Carlos Santana *air guitars for a couple of hours*.
If I were rating songs solely based on the thoughtful use of // quality of the guest spot by Carlos Santana, I would put this one behind “Maria Maria” (obviously. come on). And say what you want about “Smooth” -- oh wait I guess you don't actually "gotta hand it to em."
Thankfully we're not rating songs based on that (but maybe we should? next bracket? owen?). Ms. Lauryn Hill's voice is incredibly beautiful. I'm also a sucker for a song dedicated to your kid and I think this one is particularly heartfelt and sincere without being treacly. It's on an album that deserves to be on any number of best of lists. It's great and maybe you skipped it because it comes right before “Doo Wop (That Thing)” or haven't listened to it in a while - you should. Santana is pretty much irrelevant - i mean it's nice to have it be him playing the guitar, but I have to think you could have had any number of session musicians - it came out the same year as Smooth so I'm wondering if he just sent out his resume to a bunch of producers??? And oh dear there's a minute and a half skit at the end. I've listened to my share of skits and i want all that time back. This one wasn't too bad though.
“Nobody Does it better”? I'm going to refer you to my notes that I wrote as I listened, in full:
ahhh even better. the sweetest sounds. RIP nate dogg. the soul of g-funk
That's what I got. I shouldn't be allowed to review songs by nate dogg. Gone too soon.
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. - Kurupt, "In Gotti we Trust," Streetlights (2010)
[Eric]:
I don't have as much to say here but I liked both of these songs. I can assure the submitter that you were judged fairly because both of these actually are the sort of thing I like. Jose Gonzalez had some enjoyable guitar strumming, 70s style singer-songwriter / neil young vibes. I enjoyed all phases of the song. I would like to learn more about his "stints with hardcore bands during the 1990s". As well as his numerous appearances on the soundtrack (including a remix by the Chainsmokers (!?!?)) for the 2013 Ben Stiller movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (there was a great new yorker profile of him written during the production of this movie that managed to convey in 15,000 words the spirit of the kent brockman joke: "I'm here at the Springfield Aztec Theater... where, after eight months and nine Academy Awards...The Itchy and Scratchy Movie is showing for the last time. Tomorrow, a new movie starring Liza Minnelli and Mickey Rourke will open. Will it be as successful? Only time will tell."). I don't recommend listening to his cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
I liked “Paresthesia” as well. I think owen likes it. I like her voice. I would listen to more songs by this band, mainly because I like the M83/passion pit/Chvrches/fill in your own 80s-influenced synthy dream pop band era. I am surprised it came out in 2017 but then again if I still like this music I'm sure other people do too. Is M83 going to come out with anything else good? I guess he's making that movie scoring money. We'll always have Metric. I listened to a bunch of songs by Metric after this song ended.
--
I texted Owen for guidance after this to see if I needed to award extra points for obscurity or for introducing me to something new. He said that I had the freedom...to do what I want. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to dance in the streets, I'm going to testify and no one's going to swear me under oath, I'm going to certify whatever I want to certify. I can't say that [Bill] brought me anything I'd never heard before but goddammit I hadn't listened to either of these songs in ages and I'm really glad I did. And it's not like everyone's been talking about nate dogg and warren g recently so in a sense it was sort of out of left field - particularly in this bracket of scholarly listeners.
[Eric’s entry] was perfectly OK - but neither track brought anything really new to my life, and that's the only way that they could have convinced me to pick someone other than 2 stone cold classics...
--
Winner:
I’m underwater with work right now and that’s like ten thousand words from the judges so here’s a video I found at 2:30 in the morning last night. It is far better than any video with under 5000 views has any right to be. If you’re skeptical, jump in around 5:00.
ClockClock! From Germany! Seated singing! Let’s fucking go!
Bracket. Mikey, Eric, Eden, and Forrest, you guys are up again, two songs please.
